


A City of Nightmares

by ladybugwarrior



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Baby Bruce, Bruce and Alfred's relationship is why I keep coming back to this show lets be honest, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I LIVE FOR IT, Post-Episode: s03e14 The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, any hurt these characters go through is worth it for the reunion hug, i thrive off of it, pretty much all of Alfred's nicknames for Bruce show up at one point or another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 09:45:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12528524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladybugwarrior/pseuds/ladybugwarrior
Summary: Jerome kidnaps Bruce on his night of terror and Alfred will do anything it takes to get him boy home safely.





	A City of Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> I started this after I saw this episode during my binge of season 3 before the premiere came out and honestly Bruce and Alfred's relationship is so good and pure that I could live with a show that was just them running around and having fun in Switzerland. To bad Gotham doesn't allow things like that.

Gotham was a city of nightmares with demons that hide in every alleyway. They crawl out as the sun cowers away from a city that thrives in it’s absence. The light was a villain the evil that ran through the veins of a city that values the self over the neighbor. Somedays Alfred found himself wanting to pack it all away, move far from the broken buildings that lined cracked asphalt streets. He wished to take Bruce to live in Switzerland, forget the corruption and bad fortune that this city left in its wake. Bruce Wayne, in the eyes of his guardian, was the single ray of sunshine that tries to push past the dark grey clouds shrouding a city of nightmares. A city that puts a new dark twist on evil every night.

Then the power went out. The whole city went without power and the butches, the store clerks, the hostess that smiled at you in the morning all changed. They grew vile and molded into barely recognizable ghouls with haunting laughs and smiles that held danger within them. Alfred had to wonder if these people ever really changed when the light left. Or were they just newly free of consequence being led by their lunatic messiah. He definitely should have taken Bruce far away from this place when the Waynes were gunned down like stray dogs. A real-estate agents should have been his first call after he finished cleansing the paternal blood off of Bruce’s face.

That was three years ago now. Three years since he became the father of the shaking boy he held in the dark. Now this city was tearing itself apart. Jerome Valeska and his band of freaks rip through the manor as he watches, holding his boy behind him. Alfred wasn’t an idiot, he knew that Jerome had only one reason to be at the manor. This clown, this jokester was planning on killing Bruce. That much was clear in the fire that burned within his eyes whenever they landed on the boy. How his skin would separate from muscle when he laughed. Alfred would kill him before he would let any harm fall upon Bruce. He hoped that he remembered that as he was taken by the manic clowns and was brought to a carnival of horror and gore.

The clowns that were supposed to kill Alfred were easily taken care of by Jim and himself. After that it did not take long to find Bruce, the fair grounds were the only powerd part of the city and Jerome would want to complete the show he was promised a year ago. It was all a bloody horror show. Men and women were being used as dart practice and as treats for piranhas. Though Alfred could only keep his focus on one person, the boy handcuffed to a wooden pole with a cannon pointed at his chest. The boy attempted to keep his composure as hundreds laughed and giggled in glee at his upcoming slaughter. 

Alfred’s vision distorted itself into tunnels leading only to Bruce while a rage like he had never felt before brewed in his heart. He couldn’t say how many clowns ended up crossing paths with him on his way to Bruce, the amount of bones it wasn’t as important the boy they were broken for. By the time he reached the poll that once held Bruce Wayne, he was left with only the restraints that once held him. A small glint of red metal stuck out of the keyhole. Jim pulled it out to inspect it.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s a staple.” He handed it to me. The red tint came off on our hands, blood. It was now a malformed piece of metal that had been bent and warped, but it may have once resembled the staples that held the remains of Jerome’s face on. Alfred had to wonder if Bruce maybe got a lucky punch in and snuck one of the staples out as a tool to use for later.

“Find him, I’ll find Jerome.” Jim said before heading back into the chaos and clowns.

There were hundreds of Gotham’s worst laughing and screaming, and Bruce was somewhere in all of it. Alfred called for him, but never received a reply. Either the boy couldn't hear him or he was too afraid to come out of hiding. He doubted the second of options though, the boy was to stubborn to let fear hold him back. Bruce Wayne was as resolute as his father in that regard.

“Alfred.” He heard from behind him. A single voice that rose above all others and hand since the moment he held the small baby within his arms. Since the days when he pushed him on a swing set as he yelled ‘higher, higher.’ To when he sobbed into Alfred’s chest and apologized for hours after falling into one of the caves below the manor. Alfred had sworn to protect the owner of that voice from the beginning, his boy mattered above all else.

“Bruce.” His voice left him halfway through. There he was, black hair and blue eyes staring back at him. The young boy ran into his arms and Alfred held him there. He placed his head on top of the boys like had the night of his parents death or when he and Ms.Kyle had been chased by assassins. There was a certain desperation to the hug as they clutched to each other. Alfred’s fist balled into the fabric of Bruce’s jacket, as did the young master’s. For a moment's Alfred just relinquished in the feeling Bruce’s moving chest against his own a steady reminder that he got there on time.

“I thought they killed you.” Bruce said against Alfred’s once impeccable suit that was now covered in dirt and blood.

“It takes a lot more than a few clowns to get rid of me, Sunshine.” He put some distance between them to check Bruce over for injuries. There was face paint in the form of a grotesque vision of grief, blood forming a rusted frown. Someone had used Bruce’s face as an art project with that harsh smudge of red across his face.

There was no time to check for other injuries before Jerome came out of the mirror maze that Bruce came from. He limped as he walked and Alfred felt a rush of pride for his boy. Alfred was about to raise his gun when Jim punched the clown on the jaw, knocking face askew. With one more hit Jerome’s face was separated and he fell unconscious. 

Not long after the police arrived and the remaining clowns scattered back into the darkness. Jim offered a ride to the hospital to check over Bruce, but it was reasoned that more immediate care would be available if he were to return to Wayne Manor. There was also the added level of safety, there was no telling what could still be lurking around the city. Jim gave them a ride home and Bruce went immediately indoors, without so much as a ‘thank you’ to the detective.

“Will he be okay?” Jim watched as the boy crossed the threshold and closed the large doors behind him. “Lee might not be feeling very warm towards me, but she’d be willing to help if you asked.”

“That would be quite alright, Detective Gordon. I imagine that Ms.Thompkins is about to become quite busy after tonight. Master Bruce will be well taken care of.”

Jim didn’t seem sure, maybe if he hadn’t been stretched so thin over the past few days he would have fought harder. “Well call me if you need anything. Also I would keep a gun on you and an eye on Bruce, there could still be some of those freaks out there.”

“Quite right, Detective. Thank you for the ride, now if you would excuse me, I have more important matters to attend to.”

Alfred waved Him off as the detective headed back into Gotham to begin cleaning up the mess that Jerome and his cult had created. It was no doubt that the detective was in for another long night, but that didn’t matter. Moments like these was when Alfred felt the distance between the manor and the city, was grateful for it in fact. The whole city could burn and Wayne Manor would stand strong, one could only hope that Bruce would be inside it if that day were ever to occur. 

When Alfred went back into the Manor he found Bruce exactly where he expected him to be, his father’s study. Bruce was picking up books that had been thrown from the shelves and putting them away, the order of them ingrained into the young boy’s mind. He was about to grab another when Alfred put a hand on his arm to stop him. Bruce let out a small cry and pulled his arm to his chest. Alfred put his hands out infront of the skittish boy waiting for Bruce’s consent to look at it. After a moment of recalibration, Bruce handed his arm out for Alfred to see.

Pushing back the sleeve of one of Bruce’s favorite sweaters, Alfred saw one staple and two wounds that at first he couldn’t place. Then Alfred realized where the staple Bruce had used to escape had come from, and that it had taken two attempts.

There was so much that he wanted to tell the boy. He wanted to tell Bruce how proud he was of him for surviving and using his resources like Alfred had taught him to. That he was so happy that Bruce was still alive. That he had thought that he hadn’t when he heard the cannon go off. Though with one look at Bruce’s face, still covered in the remains of paint and blood, Alfred knew that he wasn’t ready to hear those things yet. Bruce had that look in his eyes that meant calculation and purposeful thought, he needed to look through the events of the night and realize himself that he did all he could. The boy wouldn’t come out of it until he was done, Alfred knew that. So until then he led the boy to the kitchen to begin cleaning him up.

First he discarded of the sweater, whether or not he kept it or threw it out Alfred wasn’t sure yet. He hoped that the comfort that was once found in the sweater, a gift from the boy's mother, would not be forever ruined by the events of the day. That would be Bruce’s decision, one for another day.

Alfred quickly then collected what medical supplies he would need and sat down in front of the boy. Bruce had set his arm out on the table next to him, knowing Alfred would likely start there. Alfred started with an ice pack on the inflamed arm and got to work wiping away filth from Bruce’s face. It took a bit of doing, but soon all traces of that horrendous mask were off and he could see his son’s face once again.

“There we go, that is much better.” He said putting the washcloth down, feeling a new need to fill the silence. Bruce was usually done analyzing things by now. This silence was different, it weighed him down like slowly drying cement. It was the silence of trauma, not of thought.

There was no reply. With a sigh he began on cleaning the wounds on Bruce’s forearm. The last staple was pulled cleanly, though it still pained the boy. He got to work sterilizing the wound, though making note to keep an eye out for infection. 

“Well, got to say the clown makeup was way more terrifying than the damage underneath, Master Bruce.” He remarked while wrapping the wound in gauze, still no reply though.

“Well in a couple of days, you'll be back to your old self. I guarantee it. You ready to tell me what happened?”

He did. Bruce told Alfred of his fear that he would once again lose a part of his small family. He told Alfred that he had come within inches of taking a life, a mad and deprived life, but a life all the same. There was a fear that once Bruce headed down a darker path that he wouldn’t be able to steer himself right again. That he would become lenient with who did or did not survive. Alfred knew that it could one day ruin the boy if he were to travel down that path, that could never happen. So they made a rule, the first rule. It was a small but important step on a broken road that would try and rip through the fabric of Bruce’s soul everyday. That was fine, because Alfred would be right there by his side to sew it back together again.

“Let’s get to work then,” Alfred told him as he went to the kitchen to grab the hot chocolate that he had been making before attending to Bruce. “Not today though, you’ve been through enough as it is.”

“Thank you Alfred, but this really isn’t necessary.”

“Well I am your guardian and I say that it is. You’ve had enough excitement to last a hundred lifetimes, it’s right time that you behaved like a child again.”

Bruce gave him that small smile that he started saving for rare occasions after his parents. “I’m not a child, Alfred.”

“You’re one as long as I say you are. Now get to the couch we’re going to sit down and watch something that you will no doubt find petty and childish.” Alfred gave him the look that always meant that he was not to be disobeyed, one that no Wayne had ever been able to overcome. So Bruce conceded, there was really no other option.

They collected themselves on the couch in front of the one of two televisions in the Manor, the one in Alfred’s private lounging space. The Wayne’s had always been rather studious, sticking to books rather than whatever programing was on for the night. The only other television was in the master bedroom, a room that remained untouched other than Alfred’s weekly cleaning of it. That left them on Alfred’s worn couch, wrapped in the warmest blankets he could find, drinking their choice of tea or hot chocolate.

“Any preference, Master B?” Alfred asked turning on the set.

“The news, if you don’t mind.”

“Not bloody likely.” He flipped through the channels, passing over the news without thought, until he found something that he found suitable. 

“There, this will be enjoyable for you. You can learn how people interact, call it research.”

“I fail to see how a soap opera could teach me anything, Alfred.”

“Well I guess you’ll just have to watch and find out ya cheeky monkey.”

Bruce gave a small laugh, another leap in progress from his near catatonic state only ten minutes ago. Come to think of it, Alfred couldn’t remember the last time he heard the boy laugh. Gotham had the tendency to do that to people, ripping the laughter out of those who need it and perverting it in others. He wished that he could go back to a time and place when Bruce didn't have this sense of duty weighing so heavily on him.

“You know, I was thinking we go to Switzerland again, just for a few months.”

“We can’t just run away to Switzerland every time someone tries to kill me Alfred.” Bruce said keeping his eyes on the television, periodically taking a sip from his hot chocolate.

“I don’t see why not.”

Bruce didn’t answer, he always had an issue with voicing his thoughts. It was something that Alfred had been trying to help him with, along with socializing with children his age, for years now. Though Bruce always seemed at his most content with Alfred, he didn’t need a constant conversation to be fulfilled. He was a creature of silence.

“I quite like Switzerland.” Alfred remarked, thinking of all the nights by the fire and hiking through the woods. Being with Martha and Thomas, raising Bruce in a world so far from Gotham that the city seemed to disappear.

“Me too.” Bruce looked up to him and gave that small smile again; one that Alfred returned as he wrapped an arm around his son and they sat in the glow of the television screen.


End file.
